Holliday Grainger Quotes

It's got to be a challenge but at the same time you have to feel as though you can play them - it's really dangerous to want to be a part of something just because you think it's going to be great. I've been sent plenty of scripts where I've known that it's going to be a great film and a successful one, but I just couldn't convince myself that I was the right person for the part. So, I think you have to be careful with that.

I think that a lot of the time I don't go for something in particular. I see what comes to me, I filter it out. I never really strive to play a particular character or do a particular genre of film. As long as it's a good script and a great range of people and my character is really interesting I can't see any reason not to do it.

I just want to work and be in films that I like, it is so simple. I think from the outside it seems as though as actors, we are picking and choosing our roles, but it isn't like that at all, perhaps unless you are George Clooney. There are not that many movies I would want to be in.

Sometimes we'll only get one script in a year that we want to make that we feel is good enough.

There are some roles you just don't say 'no' to. Those compass points: you get them so rarely as an actress.

I think when you're a bigger star you get many good scripts sent to you, and you have to choose which one you're going to gravitate toward, but I just try to gravitate toward the best-written one that's been thrown my way after a lot of girls have passed on it.

Maybe I'm more drawn to those kind of parts because they are meaningful to me. I mean, more parent-y ones, I find them interesting to do.

Once I moved to Chicago and started trying to get acting jobs, I just tended to book more things that were comedically based than anything else. I never had the preconceived notion, 'I will be a comedic actor.' I just thought, 'I'll go into acting and see what kind of work I can get.'

I don't exactly set out to only play creepy characters, it's just that a lot of those roles come my way.

I'm a character actor - always have been, always will be - and historically, character actors don't come into their own until later in their professional and chronological lives.

I'm not particularly fond of playing villains. I do want to be a working actor, and I've had to look at what was offered to me, what roles I could get, and what I could do with them. Even though I'm not drawn to putting those kinds of darker characters out there, I think it's an interesting challenge.

But actors at a certain point take the best of what's available to them.

I get better roles in television. I'm not going to do a lesser role just to be in a feature film.

I think that the more success you have as an actor, I think, the greatest advantage of being successful as an actor or being in this business is that you have the chance to pick and choose, or you have people coming to you with a much more different variety of roles.

I'd like to play characters who are older - I don't want to be playing 14-year-olds too much longer.

I'd quite like to do a film but I'd also love to do more theatre. I want to keep challenging myself with good roles. It's harder for women because there aren't as many challenging roles.

I don't want to be an actress. I want to be doing good work that is well written and has good people in it.

For me, I think you make a choice what kind of actor you want to be, and then it's kind of the material you choose.

I'm not put off so much by first-time directors if the script is great. If the script isn't there, I'm not there.

That's all you can do as an actor - take the best thing available.

I've always had the same principle for choosing roles, which is to try and make movies that I would pay to see. As I get older, that's meant different things.

Playing dysfunctional characters or crazy characters is only fun if they're well written. So I have been lucky enough to be asked to play crazy people who are very well written.

I've been acting for 15 years now, and the more you do, the more confidence you get about 'this is my career, and this is what I'm going to be doing.' Since I've started coming to the States, I've had a really great response. It's given me a lot of confidence to be more judicious about my own choices.

For an actor, it's important to choose the right kind of project.

I play characters that allow me to do lot more than just be a glamorous heroine.